The intensification of selective consolidation and vertical integration in the maritime-portal chain is enriched with a new dowel. The Spanish sea-port group Boluda Corporación Marítima, in fact, has signed an agreement to buy the logistic and marine group Samskip, including all the activities and all the goods of the Dutch company. The operation, focusing on short-range shipping and on the union of two complementary marine networks, is framed in this phase of consolidation being based on the integration between navigation, terminal and terrestrial transport and aiming to coordinate ship-train-camion and terminal services, offering integrated solutions from the point of departure to the final destination. The acquisition therefore represents the most recent signal of the tendency to concentrate activities and infrastructure along the entire chain of freight transport.

Boluda and Samskip have already a consolidated collaboration thanks to services managed jointly in Spain, and the acquisition aims to unite the skills of the group Boluda that, besides a long maritime tradition, boasts a position of relief in the field of the harbour trailer, the transport of container and the harbour logistics, with the solid presence of the Samskip in North Europe and its experience in the multimodal transport.

Announcing the understanding, Boluda has evidenced that the operation will allow to create the network of services of short sea shipping more complete of Europe that will extend from North Europe to the Iberian Peninsula, to the Canary Islands and to West Africa. In particular, the marine network will include 32 ships used on 18 routes connecting the markets of 28 nations. The network will be accompanied by 21 marine terminals that connect the services of marine transport with the main centers of production and consumption through a terrestrial network that will be further upgraded from five railway terminals and from beyond 500 trucks of ownership. Such network will manage a total of 35,000 container, for an annual logistic volume greater than 750.000 teu.

The acquisition is part of an international expansion of the Boluda group already in progress. In recent years the Spanish group has strengthened its presence in the harbour trailer services, through operations that have affected, among others, the assets of Seatrium in Singapore, Mackenzie Marine & Towage (MMT) in Australia and Les Abeilles in France. The acquisition of Samskip expands this strategy beyond the trailer, strengthening the activities of marine transport of goods and multimodal logistics.

The operation is part of a reorganization of the activities of Samskip that last February had agreed to the sale to CLdN of the goods transport activities between continental Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, with the transfer that became operational on 29 June.

The Agreement shall be subject to the approval of the competent authorities and to the satisfaction of the closing conditions agreed between the parties. Until the completion of the operation, expected for next January, Samskip and Boluda will continue to operate independently.